As an addition to my humble collection of revolutionary “souvenirs”, I purchased these military buttons that were created and used during the French Revolution. As far as I can judge, they are made of copper, and both have a diameter of 2.4 mm (0.95 inches). Due to Louis Fallou’s Le Bouton Uniforme français, I was able to find out more about these militaria.
On 4 October 1792, a letter from Servan, the Minister of War, was read out in the National Convention ; therein, he reported that the National Guards, as true republicans, had demanded new buttons for their uniforms, since the current ones still bore the caption “La Nation, la Loi et le Roi”. After the fall of the monarchy and the establishment of the Republic, this design was of course no longer appropriate, which is why Servan asked for the authorisation to issue new buttons bearing the words “La République française”, along with fasces crowned by a liberty cap, or any other design which the Convention would consider appropriate. Following an intervention by Pierre-Louis Manuel, the following decree was passed:
The National Convention decrees that the buttons of all troops of the Republic will in the future have these words as a caption: République Française ; in the middle, there will be fasces crowned by a Liberty cap.
The National Convention refers, for the execution, to the executive power, [which is] obliged to give a report on it.
The decree concerning new buttons was therefore not limited to the National Guard, but extended to all troops of the young Republic. Accordingly, many new designs were created for the various troops ; while most of them had the same overall design, characterised by common elements of revolutionary symbolism (fasces, liberty cap, civic crown etc), there were differences in the composition according to the troop types (the buttons of the artillery troops, for instance, included cannons in addition to the ordinary design), and, as the designs for the infanterie légere demonstrate, even the buttons for the same types of troops had numerous different variations:
My buttons can be found among these designs for the light infantry ; according to Louis Fallou’s Le Bouton Uniforme français, the colour of this model is unknown, but it is presumed that the buttons were either white or yellow. (Personally, I tend to believe that the latter is the case, as my buttons display residues of what appears to be gilding or yellow alloy.) Buttons with these designs were produced and used from late 1792 onwards until 1803.
Personally, while I am in general not particularly fond of militaria or the military in general, I am happy to add these revolutionary buttos to my collection of revolutionary “souvenirs”.
What do you think, citizens? Have a nice day!
